Focus on 360 and PS3 was wrong move

John Riccitiello, the CEO for Electronic Arts, has admitted that the company was “on the wrong horse” when EA committed so many resources to development of titles for the 360 and PS3.

Riccitiello suggests that during the console transition period from the older consoles they just did not anticipate the success Nintendo would have with the Wii’s controller. Still, EA managed to have the second largest market share of software vendors for the Wii with 19%, mostly fueled by sales of the Wii version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Only Nintendo has a larger market share of software sales on the Wii.

EA has shipped six new titles for the Wii in fiscal 2007 and has more titles in the pipeline. EA is ramping up their development efforts for the Wii and you can expect more announcements of titles for the Wii platform in the near future. This is good news for Nintendo who has struggled a bit in getting developers to commit resources to developing new games for the Wii. We don’t think that EA was the only developer who missed the Will boat. Strong sales of the Wii are forcing other developers to step up development efforts in order to get a piece of the action.